Fuel cells are used as an electrical power source in many applications. In particular, fuel cells are proposed for use in automobiles to replace internal combustion engines. A commonly used fuel cell design uses a solid polymer electrolyte (“SPE”) membrane or proton exchange membrane (“PEM”) to provide ion transport between the anode and cathode.
In proton exchange membrane type fuel cells, hydrogen is supplied to the anode as fuel and oxygen is supplied to the cathode as the oxidant. The oxygen can either be in pure form (O2) or air (a mixture of O2 and N2). PEM fuel cells typically have a membrane electrode assembly (“MEA”) in which a solid polymer membrane has an anode catalyst on one face, and a cathode catalyst on the opposite face. The anode and cathode layers of a typical PEM fuel cell are formed of porous conductive materials, such as woven graphite, graphitized sheets, or carbon paper to enable the fuel to disperse over the surface of the membrane facing the fuel supply electrode. Each electrode has finely divided catalyst particles (for example, platinum particles), supported on carbon particles, to promote oxidation of hydrogen at the anode and reduction of oxygen at the cathode. Protons flow from the anode through the ionically conductive polymer membrane to the cathode where they combine with oxygen to form water which is discharged from the cell. The MEA is sandwiched between a pair of porous gas diffusion layers (“GDL”), which in turn are sandwiched between a pair of non-porous, electrically conductive elements or plates. The plates function as current collectors for the anode and the cathode, and contain appropriate channels and openings formed therein for distributing the fuel cell's gaseous reactants over the surface of respective anode and cathode catalysts. In order to produce electricity efficiently, the polymer electrolyte membrane of a PEM fuel cell must be thin, chemically stable, proton transmissive, non-electrically conductive and gas impermeable. In typical applications, fuel cells are provided in arrays of many individual fuel cell stacks in order to provide high levels of electrical power.
The electrically conductive plates currently used in fuel cells provide a number of opportunities for improving fuel cell performance. For example, these metallic plates typically include a passive oxide film on their surfaces requiring electrically conductive coatings to minimize the contact resistance. Such electrically conductive coatings include gold and polymeric carbon coatings. Typically, these coatings require expensive equipment that adds to the cost of the finished bipolar plate.
For water management, it is desirable for metal bipolar plates to have a low contact angle at the bipolar plate/water border; that is, a contact angle less than 40°. Titanium nitride coatings have been proposed as corrosion-resistant plating for bipolar plates. Although titanium nitride coatings are cost-effective, such coatings do not provide satisfactory protection for the bipolar plate material. Further, titanium nitride coatings develop relatively low water affinity with a contact angle close to 60°. Hydrophilic coatings have improved the water management in PEM fuel cells and the occurrence of low performing cells (“LPC”). Examples of hydrophilic coatings for these applications include bilayered structures as in SiO2/Au coatings and titania nanotubes and nanoparticle coatings, see, for example, US2009/0087716 and US2009/0092874. More recently, various hydrophilic carbon coatings have been used.
Although these hydrophilic coatings work reasonably well, water accumulation at the exit region of the plates makes it difficult to start a fuel cell stack after a frozen cycle. Hydrophilic coatings in the exit manifold region, however, help the overall performance and water management but require additional purging cycles for freeze starts and these purge cycles can be long which is not efficient for the overall stack system.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved methodology for water management properties at the surfaces of bipolar plates used in fuel cell applications.